Smörgåsbord

Ralph gazes at the vast array of food laid out on the kitchen table.

‘Hey, wow, it’s quite the… smörgåsbord!’

Stellan glances up at us, licking meatball sauce from his thumb.  

‘Hi. Yes. Yeah, it is.’

He’s stooping slightly, too tall for my kitchen. He’s wearing the navy linen shirt his mother sent him for his birthday.

‘So this is… from your country?’ offers Ralph. He hasn’t quite caught up with his breathing after the stairs.

‘We eat this kind of thing a lot in Sweden, yes. But it’s just, y’know, fish and meat. British fish and meat, in this case.’

When Stellan first opened that shirt it was practically rigid with starch. We laughed about it. He said this was typical of his mother; she had probably washed and treated it herself after buying it. I can see that it is soft now. It ripples slightly over his naval as he bends to roll a herring fillet.

‘So what do you guys call this… you know… type of… thing?’ asks Ralph, touching the tablecloth lightly. 

‘A smörgåsbord,’ says Stellan mildly, skewering the herring into position with a cocktail stick.

Juliet snorts unhelpfully from the couch.